Cobham Satcom Explorer 8120 VSAT antenna. Photo: Cobham

NSR released its VSAT and Broadband Satellite Markets 17th Edition report, in which it predicts cumulative market revenue of $159 billion in the next decade. The report also predicts 13.4 percent annual growth in the installed base of consumer sites alone. Enterprise Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) is a solid contributor with a predicted $12.3 billion in capacity revenues by 2027, driven by key verticals worldwide.

“Satellite Consumer Broadband is just scratching the surface of the opportunity, capturing less than 1 percent of the potential addressable market,” said NSR Senior Analyst Lluc Palerm. “Subscribers are very sensitive to more generous data caps and cost. Consequently, lower capacity pricing will trigger strong demand elasticities. Additionally, the ecosystem is still underdeveloped in many regions. A stronger focus on retail, and newly available capacity, will see accelerated growth. Furthermore, new business models like Wi-Fi Hotspots are proliferating, which would open the lowest segments of the market. Smallcells will drive 43 percent of service revenues by 2027.”

Video is, by a significant margin, the primary driver of data traffic. Multiple offers are now publicizing unmetered services for web browsing, email, and other critical functions, but “streaming time allowance” is the main influencer on subscribers’ quality of experience. Limiting video quality to 720p is now standard among platforms so that users can enjoy faster streaming time, albeit sacrificing video quality. On the Enterprise VSAT side,  “Growth returns in the enterprise segment. Backhaul remains the key vertical and will generate 55 percent of cumulative revenues in the next 10 years,” said NSR Senior Analyst Gagan Agrawal. “While some regions continue under turbulent times, Asia has generated excellent growth with numerous big deployments.”